New Leb discussed in final debate

Paul Schott

Updated 10:55 pm, Tuesday, October 29, 2013

In their final public discussion together before the Nov. 5 town election, the six Board of Education candidates in a Tuesday night debate at Eastern Middle School expressed support for a number of common goals, including exploration of an expansion of the overcrowded New Lebanon School.

The future of New Lebanon's severely strained building has emerged as a top issue for the board in recent months, as it examines facility-use challenges in the district's elementary schools. At its Oct. 24 meeting, members unanimously sought a $100,000 interim appropriation from the Board of Estimate and Taxation and Representative Town Meeting for a feasibility study on prospective capital improvements at New Lebanon's Mead Avenue campus.

"If you want to have good neighborhood schools, you need to have good facilities," said Republican Peter Sherr, the sole board incumbent running for re-election this year. "New Lebanon's facility is currently substandard, and we need to put capacity where children are. New Lebanon is a magnet, and we need to maintain it as a magnet to maintain a unique-school status.

"If we can get 80 percent of a school renovation like New Lebanon funded by the state, we should take it. It's Greenwich money anyway. We are just getting back what we sent up to Hartford."

Democrat Samarpana Tamm, a Byram resident and RTM member who lives a few blocks from New Lebanon, also strongly advocated expansion.

"Each of us is very aware that an overcrowded classroom and racial imbalance is a detriment to learning," she said. "Overcrowding takes the child's focus off the teacher and the task at hand. New Lebanon and Hamilton Avenue (School) are severely overcrowded. New Lebanon classes are literally held in closets. One large classroom is divided into four, each with a class taking place. Special (education) is held on the stage where the strings used to be and the strings have to find another space. This is not acceptable."

"First, classrooms are too crowded," he said. "Two grades are using a teacher and an assistant in one classroom because the class size is above guidelines. This structure has raised performance in a Wisconsin study, but it's not a long-term solution. Second, the actual infrastructure at the school is substandard. A simple calculation shows that New Lebanon has one-third less space per student than the next most-crowded school and 45 percent less space per student than the district average. This crowding does not lend itself to an equal education and arguably it does not lend itself to a good education.

"My conclusion we must add on to the school just to restore equal educational opportunity."

Democrat Laura Erickson, who served 13 years on the RTM and is a former Greenwich High PTA president, voiced her support for major capital improvements at New Lebanon.

"The educators do not believe the current facility is meeting the needs of its students," she said. "I believe the situation needs to be remedied. What needs to be in place and funded for 2014-15 is a plan to address the immediate needs of New Lebanon students. They need swing space, and this is going to require the good ideas of support of other school communities.

"Do I believe that a new facility at New Lebanon will attract students from other parts of town -- yes, I do. We are turning away students at (The International School at Dundee). Furthermore, the designation of Western Middle School as an (International Baccalaureate) magnet provides a continuum of the IB platform, which is something that has been on-deck for several years and is now a reality."

"The first order of business is addressing the overcrowding issue at New Lebanon, as it exists today," he said. "If we want to champion neighborhood schools, we must support them all. I support looking into possible expansion because we need it for utilization.

"This is more than just racial imbalance. If a school is crowded, it is not conducive to the proper education of students. It is impossible to achieve under the current conditions. This should not be the case in any of our schools."

Democrat Debbie Appelbaum, a former Greenwich High PTA president, identified major building work at New Lebanon as a potential successor to the construction of the musical instruction space and auditorium project at the high school as the district's next cornerstone capital project.

"I support an expanded, new or renovated facility at New Lebanon and on any grounds, not just racial imbalance," she said. "At this point, the community of New Lebanon will not fit into its facility for easily the next 10 years without expansion. Given the state of their building, the Board of Ed should have one major capital project going on at a time. It takes years of planning, design, approval process and construction to make that happen. We should be starting now, so that when MISA is finished, we can dovetail right into the next one."

The Cos Cob, Old Greenwich and Riverside associations sponsored Tuesday's forum. It followed a candidates forum Monday at the Round Hill Community House sponsored by the Northeast Greenwich, Northwest Greenwich and Round Hill associations. Roseann Benedict, the Riverside Association's president, served as the moderator.

Benedict also asked the candidates about academic achievement, the impact of the Board of Estimate and Taxation's budget guidelines on the school district and their view of how board members should work with each other and the district's administration.